- [Instructor] In this particular tip and trick for AutoCAD,
we're going to look at 3D design
and how your visual styles in your full AutoCAD
can allow you to work
with those 3D designs that you're working on as well.
Again, it's a case of working smarter and not harder.
Just use the tools that AutoCAD's got
to allow you to work quicker and more efficiently.
Now we've got a drawing for you.
It's called 218 3D design visual styles.
You can see the name of the file up there in the title bar,
in AutoCAD, on the screen.
As usual, you can download that from the library
to follow along with this particular tips and tricks video.
Now it is a 3D DWG file.
Be aware of that.
So when you open up the drawing
you'll notice we are in the model tab, bottom left.
So remodel space like so,
and on the view cube here, we're in the top view in 3D.
You should be able to see a little bit of perspective
going on with the holes there, through our 3D solid.
And when you hover over it,
it'll tell you it's a 3D solid on the layer,
3D solids as well.
Now, if you're in you're drafting and annotation workspace
you need to change that too.
So at the moment, you'll notice I'm on the home tab
on the ribbon there,
and I've got my standard what they call
drafting and annotation workspace running.
I need to come down here to workspace switching
click there and select 3D modeling.
That'll update the ribbon
and we're now in the 3D modeling workspace in AutoCAD.
And it's always useful to be in that workspace
if you're working in 3D.
You can find all the commands so much easier that way.
Now we're going to go to the view tab, first of all.
And what we want to do here
is we want to think about setting up some viewports.
Now the viewports themselves can be set up very easily
in our model space.
Now, somebody is going to say to me,
hang on a minute why are you setting up viewports
in model space?
Well when you work in 3D
you want some different views going on.
So you want to be able to see what views are available.
Now you'll notice I've got things like view manager,
new view, unsaved view here in the Named Views panel
in the View Tab on the ribbon.
You need to go to your view manager.
Now at the view manager at the moment,
can you see, we've got different model views
we can set up and preset views,
but I want to set up some view ports here.
I want to set up some differing viewports.
Now the trick is just to type viewports like so
in the dynamic input like that.
Can you see that?
There's viewport.
Now, as soon as you do that,
it brings up the viewport's dialogue box like so.
You can create named views
which is what the name views panel is for.
And you can do that in your view manager as well
but ideally you just want to set up some view ports
in the model space.
Now, the reason I'm doing this
might seem very very distant compared to visual styles.
You'll see why I'm going to change the visual styles
in a moment.
We want four equal viewports in our model space like so.
So there's our different view ports there.
Now the lovely thing about this
is I can change the views and the visual styles.
So if I jump in here like so
I've got view current, there's our top view like so,
visual style real estate.
We'll leave that one as it is.
What I'll do here is set this one to a different view.
So what I can do now is change it to a different view.
at the moment it's current, but I can jump in here,
visual style is realistic.
So I might want 2D Y frame, for example
and then here, I might want a different view again.
So can you see there, it's setting these up to current,
but it's not setting them up to 3D.
It's because I need to change this here.
If I sent that to 3D, now I can start changing the views
you'll notice as well.
So just make sure that you check what's going on
in each part of the viewport's dialogue box.
So again, we want this one to be set to the current view
with realistic,
this one front view, 2D Y frame,
this one SouthEast,
I'm going to change that to South West isometric.
And I want that to be a visual style of conceptual.
And then what we'll do here
we'll have another Southwest isometric
but we'll have it sent to the hidden visual style like so.
Now we've got everything set up.
Four equal viewports, applied to display, setup 3D
and we've got our different viewport settings here.
Watch what happens when I click on okay.
Now I have different views based on the same 3D solid
that I'm working on in the drawing itself.
And I can go to each different viewport
and work on different parts of the model.
And it just makes my life so much easier.
So I can jump in here,
I can zoom in on here, pan down a little bit like so
and I can work on that part of the 3D solid there.
I can also see what's going on
in different viewpoints as well.
So what I might do for example,
if I go to the home tab now
what I'm going to do is place a circle on this face here.
So make sure that your 3D object snaps are off.
So what I can do now is just draw a circle.
So I go to the drawer panel, click here
and I want to circle center radius,
and I'm in here like so.
So there's the sense point of the circle.
I'm just going to place it there like that,
on that face like that.
Now here's the trick,
I've placed it on the face.
You can see that there, you can see that there.
Now, what I can do is use that circle in this viewport
to use something like press pull.
So if I go to press pull
in the modeling panel there on the home tab,
press pull, come in here, hover over that
and I can take that upwards a little bit.
Can you see what's happening in the top right viewport?
I can see that that's now extending.
I'll take that up a little bit.
I'm not worried about the actual length
and just click an ends to finish.
So now can you say I've got that there in that viewport,
I've got it there in that viewport
same in this viewport, just a different visual style.
And in here I've got a different visual style again.
Now I can change the visual styles in each one
just by clicking here.
So I could maybe make that 2D wire frame like so,
zoom out slightly and pan so it's centralized.
I could potentially click here and change this one to X Ray
and as you can see, I've got a very different view now
of the side view.
I can see the holes going through
and I can see the press pull.
And when I select it here
it selects it in all of the different view ports.
But the visual styles allow me to see what's going on.
So if I change this to let's say sketchy,
it looks very different again.
And the visual styles allow me to visualize
what is going on.
Shades of gray is fantastic for a monochrome shaded view.
So if I change this isometric here
to shades of gray as well
now I'm really beginning to see what's going on.
I could perhaps change this one to 2D wire frame like so,
and that looks like I'm working in 2D now.
Can you see my different shapes there?
There is still a circle there you'll notice.
So when I click there, I go to circle,
circle is selected.
Don't need it anymore, I can delete that.
It'll still leave the press pull part of the solid.
So here, I've got a view now, an overall view.
I'll keep that as a Southwest isometric
but I might want that to be x-ray like so,
so I can see what's going on there as well
and I can see the holes going through the solid.
So you can see how visual styles make a massive difference
when you're working in 3D.
So for example what I've done here now
is my two left-hand view ports are my working view ports.
I can see the holes through the solid
in the bottom left viewport.
I can see the top face of the solid
in the top left viewport.
Over on the right hand side
I've got that white background
with the shades of gray visual style
which gives me a really good idea of a more realistic view.
And these are the sort of visual styles
that I've probably place in my layout tabs
with my title block,
ready to show the client my new plate
with the five holes in it
and the little press pull cylinder
that I've put in place there as well.
Again, very simple 3D objects to generate the workflow
so that you can see what's going on
without worrying about a very complex 3D design
going on at the same time,
but make sure you utilize those view ports
and those visual styles.
The visual styles make a massive difference.
You can really see what's going on,
especially with something like the X Ray visual style
and the shades of gray visual style.
They really give you a good idea
of what your design looks like
when you're creating them in 3D AutoCAD.